17 Comments
I'm confused as to how 'he enjoys his father' would be phrased? even though its not a practical sentence.....
does taitionn require some form of le like help does? cause the translation doesn't make much sense to me otherwise. i would have said Taitnionn se a hathair for her father enjoys it.
The 'le' is neccesary if you want it to mean 'likes'. 'Taitníonn sé a hathair' means 'he shines her father'.
What about "Her father likes him" as a possible translation? DL didn't accept this.
The "h" in hathair isn't lenition, it's a h-prefix, which is only used before a word that starts with a vowel. And the rules are the opposite of the rules for lenition - the h-prefix is used after a meaning "her", so a hathair is "her father", a athair is "his father".
I know how you feel ! What helped me was making really brief cheat poems ( from my long cheat sheets, that would jog my memory. ( i don't have a great memory). My poems might not be helpful for anyone else's brain but mine, but it's easy to remember or reference a little ditty that you create and that gives you a clue. It is a work in progress , that grows as as i learn more. The best way to learn is by making mistakes. Hope this helps. don't get discouraged.
Lenite:
1-6.
BCD-FG-PT--SM.
Do - Mo- A (his).
Preps no AN ( except ar, gan, idir, thar).
very AN.
NO? Ní, Nach ( verbs).
Preps no DTS.
a Pretty Lady (singular female adj).
and More than one slender lady or gent.
Eclipse:
7-10.
BCD-FG-PT.
Ár - Bhur - A.
Preps with AN.
AN ?.
ÓN - I - AG.
LOL, I don't know what you wrote there, either but I do understand what you are saying. I may try that in my own way. What bothers me is that just when I think I understand a little bit, we get thrown a sentence like this one that is some strange "exception" . Maybe Duolingo would have been better if they didn't try to throw in every 'exception" or odd usage. I understand we have to know them eventually but maybe we could just get one concept in and leave the strange sentences for later when we are more advanced.
In this case, you're not dealing with an exception - "need" is teastaíonn, not taitníonn.
You've just mixed up two similar sounding words.
That wasn't the exception I meant though I have never been able to get those two you are right about that. i would love to find an Irish verbs book so I could see them conjugated. The exception I meant is the h on athair.
And the h on hathair isn't an exception either - it's how you tell whether the a in lena means "his" or "hers".
Thank you again. The problem I have is that I don't know what to look up. We are never given the, I don't know what you would call it but the actual verb. We are never given "to enjoy" or "to eat" . So I don't know what to look up. Thank you though it is helpful to know they are there and when I figure out each verb I will look them up. I did find "taitin" after looking a little while though. I do wish they had each translated though in case I am wrong about what they mean. Definitely helpful though, if I can figure out the verbs. When I learned French in school we would be given the verbs conjugated and you learned them that way and I can't seem to get them here on Duolingo without seeing them in order like that. (I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they)
If you want to look up a word in English, just type it into the search box on teanglann.ie, and click on the "English-Irish Dictionary". Then you can click on any of the Irish words in the response to follow the definitions to the FGB, and then click on the Grammar tab to see declension information.
Figuring out that you need to look up ith rather than ithim or itheann shouldn't require much instruction, but even if you do type in itheann, the FGB will respond with "itheann could be a grammatical form of: ith" and a link to ith. Similiarly with taitníonn - "taitníonn could be a grammatical form of: taitin" with a link to taitin.
